MEANWHILE, Nazareth Avenue Church was experiencing something never
known before in all its history. The simple appeal on the part of
its pastor to his members to do as Jesus would do had created a
sensation that still continued. The result of that appeal was very
much the same as in Henry Maxwell's church in Raymond, only this
church was far more aristocratic, wealthy and conventional. Nevertheless when, one Sunday morning in early summer, Dr. Bruce came into his pulpit and announced his resignation, the sensation deepened all over the city, although he had advised with his board of trustees, and the movement he intended was not a matter of surprise to them. But when it become publicly known that the Bishop had also announced his resignation and retirement from the position he had held so long, in order to go and live himself in the centre of the worst part of Chicago, the public astonishment reached its height.
"But why?" the Bishop replied to one valued friend who had almost
with tears tried to dissuade him from his purpose. "Why should what
Dr. Bruce and I propose to do seem so remarkable a thing, as if it
were unheard of that a Doctor of Divinity and a Bishop should want
to save lost souls in this particular manner? If we were to resign
our charge for the purpose of going to Bombay or Hong Kong or any
place in Africa, the churches and the people would exclaim it the
heroism of missions. Why should it seem so great a thing if we have
been led to give our lives to help rescue the heathen and the lost
of our own city in the way we are going to try it? Is it then such a
tremendous event that two Christian ministers should be not only
willing but eager to live close to the misery of the world in order
to know it and realize it? Is it such a rare thing that love of
humanity should find this particular form of expression in the
rescue of souls?"
And however the Bishop may have satisfied himself that there ought
to be nothing so remarkable about it at all, the public continued to
talk and the churches to record their astonishment that two such
men, so prominent in the ministry, should leave their comfortable
homes, voluntarily resign their pleasant social positions and enter
upon a life of hardship, of self-denial and actual suffering. Christian America! Is it a reproach on the form of our discipleship that the exhibition of actual suffering for Jesus on the part of those who walk in His steps always provokes astonishment as at the sight of something very unusual?
Nazareth Avenue Church parted from its pastor with regret for the
most part, although the regret was modified with a feeling of relief
on the part of those who had refused to take the pledge. Dr. Bruce
carried with him the respect of men who, entangled in business in
such a way that obedience to the pledge would have ruined them, still held in their deeper, better natures a genuine admiration for courage and consistency. They had known Dr. Bruce many years as a kindly, conservative, safe man, but the thought of him in the light of sacrifice of this sort was not familiar to them. As fast as they understood it, they gave their pastor the credit of being absolutely true to his recent convictions as to what following Jesus meant. Nazareth Avenue Church never lost the impulse of that movement started by Dr. Bruce. Those who went with him in making the promise breathed into the church the very breath of divine life, and are continuing that life-giving work at this present time.
* * * * *
It was fall again, and the city faced another hard winter. The
Bishop one afternoon came out of the Settlement and walked around
the block, intending to go on a visit to one of his new friends in
the district. He had walked about four blocks when he was attracted
by a shop that looked different from the others. The neighborhood
was still quite new to him, and every day he discovered some strange
spot or stumbled upon some unexpected humanity.
The place that attracted his notice was a small house close by a
Chinese laundry. There were two windows in the front, very clean, and that was remarkable to begin with. Then, inside the window, was a tempting display of cookery, with prices attached to the various articles that made him wonder somewhat, for he was familiar by this time with many facts in the life of the people once unknown to him. As he stood looking at the windows, the door between them opened and Felicia Sterling came out.